1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to apparatus, methods, media, and signals for managing utility usage, in particular for controlling excessive or non-optimized usage of a utility, controlling a supply of a utility service to a load, facilitating monitoring of subscriber usage of a utility service, and billing a subscriber for utility service usage.
2. Description of Related Art
With the increasing prospect of rising natural gas prices, energy shortages, and water shortages looming on the horizon, there is a need for smart management of utility service usage. As national and worldwide energy resources dwindle, there is an increasing need to manage the efficiency of energy and water use. Recent years have seen an increased prevalence of energy blackouts, brownouts, and water restrictions during certain times of the year in order to conserve available resources of energy and water. As we move into the twenty first century the conservation of energy and water will gain increasing importance, requiring careful management of utilities.
Many existing systems used to manage utilities do so for control in disaster or abnormal conditions. For example some systems involve shutting off the supply of utilities during an emergency, such as in an earthquake or in response to leak detection or a short circuit. These systems generally monitor for faults or leaks in the utility system and respond by turning off a circuit breaker or shutting off valves and evacuating gases and water in order to prevent further damage to a dwelling or building.
However, in these systems there is no monitoring of utility usage and there is no subsequent controlling of utility supply in response to measurements made while monitoring the utility usage. Underscoring that need is the increased advantage of minimizing utility usage costs for inefficient use of energy, and the added safety precautions the system would present when utilizing appliances which have not been optimized for energy usage. Moreover, monitoring the usage of utilities would also naturally facilitate the tracking of utility expenditures, and would provide an opportunity to incorporate monitoring and controlling utilities with a billing process to provide payment for utility usage.
What would be desirable therefore are methods and apparatus which manage usage of a utility service.